Fr Vivian Sheeran, the controversial Cappagh priest who was thrown out of the Vatican last year for drinking 3 bottles of red wine and telling the Pope he was a ganch, has managed to irk the whole of Armagh by claiming God was comparing the Orchard County to forbidden fruit.

In a 2-hour long sermon in his home parish, Fr Sheeran maintained that God was hinting at Adam and Eve to stay away from Armagh, represented by a tree in the story, but when they did eat the apples they ventured into the county and were damned to hell for eternity.

Parishoner Henry Quinn (77) agreed with the priest’s interpretation:

“It seems plausible enough. My own grandfather mistakenly wandered into Blackwatertown and was beset with health problems thereafter. He died 2 years after that, ironically choking on an apple.”

According to listeners, Sheeran went on to claim that 2002, the year Armagh lifted the All Ireland, was a precursor to the apocalypse and mankind was only saved when God himself lifted the trophy the following year.

Meanwhile, next weekend Fr Sheeran will become the first priest in the world to marry a man to his pet dog, ‘Bubbles’, in a lavish ceremony outside the Rock.

“since our apparitions, the part of us which appears, are so momentary compared with the other, the unseen part of us, which spreads wide, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that, or even haunting certain places, after death. Perhaps - perhaps.”